


Resilience in the Heart

by LookingForShadows



Series: And This Is Good Old Boston [3]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Boston, Friendship, Gen, Not Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Compliant, Post-Series, stepsisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8240945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForShadows/pseuds/LookingForShadows
Summary: Rory visits her stepsister in April 2013, while she’s on assignment for a story in Boston. Nothing, they learn, remains sunlit and carefree for long.





	

**Author's Note:**

> “No adversity, no challenge, nothing can tear down the resilience in the heart of this city and its people.” —Mayor Thomas Menino

* * *

April has been waiting for almost half an hour when Rory’s train finally arrives, and then another few minutes before her stepsister walks in.

“Hey!” says a familiar voice, and then they’re hugging and Rory’s hopping up and down a little, annoying everyone in South Station.

“How are you?” they both ask, voices overlapping and then there’s more laughing as they walk towards the T entrance together.

“Oh, the trip was long, but I got a lot of work done. Mom called when I was going through Connecticut. I swear, she has a preternatural ability to know when I’m within shouting distance of Stars Hollow. She says hi,” Rory says. “Oh, crap. If I give you money later, can you tap me in?”

“No prob,” she says as they descend further underneath Boston. “So tell me what’s going on. Why are you in Boston, exactly? You said it was too long for the phone.”

By the time Rory has finished up her explanation—she’s working on a story for _The Washington Post_ and two former colleagues, one at _The_ _Boston Globe_ and one teaching at Tufts, might have some information—they’re already crossing the Charles and Rory is craning her neck to see the dome of MIT’s planetarium. The sun is shining in through the crowded T car, everyone talking loudly at a million miles per hour, and this, this is why April loves her city.

They glide across the bridge, even the annoying westward construction that’s been there since forever not impeding the breathlessness of this moment.

“So,” Rory says, “tell me what my life might have been like had I chosen this Ivy League instead of my own.”

“Busy,” April says with a laugh. By the time she and Rory really got to know each other, and then spend any time together and start talking on a regular basis, Rory was a couple years past college. She’s heard, of course, that her stepsister was accepted to both Harvard and Yale and knows that she chose the latter. But here has to be some lingering curiosity on the what-ifs and parallel universes of life. “I’m mostly studying like crazy, working as many hours as I can…and yet I still feel like I spend more time avoiding drunk frat boys than anything else.”

“Just – tell me everything,” Rory says, and it’s her warm smile that encourages April to talk a little about the reedy professor who smokes like a chimney behind the science center and pretends not to notice when she waves at him, and the drama with last week’s missing paycheck, and the trip she’s planning on taking to the Cape with friends just after finals.

It’s when they emerge from the T at Harvard that April suspects something is wrong. Rory seems off, somehow: not in a manic, oh-god-she’s-crazy-why-did-my-dad-marry-her-mom way. Nothing a stranger would notice. But by now, April and Rory have spent a few Christmases together, a couple Easters; they both served as bridesmaids at their parents’ wedding and regularly text each other to keep up-to-date on the latest Stars Hollow news. She knows her stepsister well enough to tell something’s wrong.

There’s no time to say anything, not now: not when they’re stepping into Harvard Square and the place is bustling and alive in the way Cambridge is from this month till late fall, before the snow and gloom set into the city. It’s nights like these, the sun just starting to set and light streaking the sky—surrounded by a swirl of people—trees beginning to green, the red brick all around picturesque—and she swears that everything, even the shining windows of the Coop across the street, is smiling at her.

“Now this,” Rory says with a smile, adjusting her purse strap over one shoulder, “is a neat city.”

* * *

April guides her to the hotel that the _Post_ is putting her up at and scribbles down the directions to Otto’s before heading back to her dorm. They’re only a few weeks from finals, and the work has to get done somehow.

So with her mind full of spliceosomal introns and mature mRNA, she heads out into the late light, eager for pizza and having forgotten all about Rory’s twitchiness from earlier.

She doesn’t remember until they’re both stuffed with several pieces of pizza and are debating over dessert—April’s roommate works at Sweet and she’s tired of cupcakes, and Rory says that she doesn’t like Pinkberry because “how do they even manage to sell froyo that doesn’t actually taste like sugar?” But then Rory shifts a little in her seat, and it all starts again.

“What’s going on?”

Rory hesitates, but smiles. “What do you mean?”

“You’re all jumpy and scattered today. And quiet. Which is weird. I mean, we don’t know each other _that_ well, although we’ve known each other for a while, and we are stepsisters, but, uh, you just seem kind of off and weird and I think I’ve said too much. Dad says I’m like that,” April says, ducking her head, and in that moment she feels like the blunt twelve-year-old meeting her dad’s girlfriend’s daughter in Jess’s bookstore.

“I am not,” Rory says petulantly, crossing her arms, and April can just picture what she must have been like as a teenager. “Oh, god. Am I? I am! I’ve turned into that girl, the crazy one!”

“Well, you’re not like I-need-to-run-in-the-opposite direction crazy,” April reasons, hoping that will help.

It doesn’t, really. “Oh, god, I’ve turned into Paris—you met Paris, right? At the wedding? And even she’s got a boyfriend who can kind of keep her sane, even though they’re practically conquering dictatorships as we speak. I’m Paris without a Doyle! Or a Professor Fleming or even a Jamie! Oh no oh _no_ —”

“Okay, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re not any of that.”

“You were the one who told me all that!”

“ _Oh_ no. I said you were acting oddly. You took it to a whole new level,” April says, leading them towards Harvard Book Store. If there’s any place for Rory to calm down, this is it.

“Where are we going?”

“Your idea of heaven. Now, what’s up?”

“Can we just—sit down for a minute?”

“Nope,” April says shortly, tugging her into the bookstore. Rory seems to revert into most of her old self then, oohing and aahing over the latest Tracy Chevalier. “C’mon, the basement has all the good cheap books. You can shower your affection on them.”

Sure enough, there are more exclamations as they descend into the basement, and the rumble of a train at their subterranean level obliterates the words coming out of Rory’s mouth.

“What?”

“Your birthday’s coming up soon,” Rory says, gazing around the bookstore’s eclectic basement collection with evident delight. “Want anything?”

“I’ve read every trashy sci-fi book that’s ever come through here, but I’ll let you know if I see anything new. Listen, Rory… what’s going on?”

But Rory avoids her gaze. “Have you read any of Isaac Asimov’s stuff? It’s classy sci-fi, of course, and the storytelling is certainly odd enough, but it’s a great read.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

She sighs, back turned as she rummages through a table of heavy books April always assumed were meant to collect dust on coffee tables. “It’s complicated. It’s just…”

April waits.

“The last year — it’s been kind of a coping year, I guess,” Rory says, flipping the pages of a glossy volume on current events. “I mean, I’m edging close to thirty and I feel really stagnant. My last serious relationship ended over a year ago—I dread going into work every day—if there was ever a case of wanderlust, I have it—it just seems like life is passing me by faster than I thought it could.”

April blinks. Well. That was...kind of the last thing she had thought of. Rory is always so put together. Sure, she panics the same as everyone else, but April’s always thought it a little ridiculous because she has such a great career, and she lives somewhere she enjoys, and she has a good group of friends.

This is not something she can fix analytically. There is only one solution.

* * *

“Okay, this is way better than Georgetown Cupcakes,” Rory says, practically gnawing on the cupcake wrapper.

“They are kind of spectacular,” says April, making a mental note to thank her roommate for bringing home leftovers all the time. “Nice place you were put up at, Gilmore.”

“The _Post_ spares no expense,” Rory says dryly. They’re in her very ordinary hotel room, sprawled across the crisp white bedspread and attempting not to spread chocolate cupcake crumbs everywhere. “Sorry for my little outburst earlier.”

“It’s okay,” she says, because it is.

“No, it’s—you’re young, you’ve got time ahead of you,” Rory says, but her wide smile gives her away as still being young herself. “I’m just maudlin.”

“That’s a great word.”

“Yeah.”

They lay in silence for several long minutes, eating the remains of chocolate coconut and mint chip cupcakes. This is the nice thing about stepsisterhood, April thinks: they never spent their childhoods fighting and now can’t hold grudges against the other for kindergarten misdeeds. There’s just comfortable friendship and the common bond of enduring Lorelai’s weirdly wonderful jokes and Dad’s curmudgeonly ways.

“It’s a weekend,” Rory says suddenly. “And I’m in a college town. We should go out, do something.”

“Okay, yeah, but this is Cambridge. The frat houses are over in Allston or whatever. Everyone on this side of the river is studying their ass off.”

“Except you.”

“Well, my stepsister’s in town. I make exceptions.”

“I’m flattered.” Silence again, and then Rory rolls over and looks at her. “Do you know that even my other sister didn’t want to see me?”

April tilts her head. “Your dad’s other kid?”

“Mm-hm. Gigi. Or Georgia, as she’s now insisting on being called,” Rory says. “She’s ten going on sixteen, I swear. I just—April, even my much, _much_ younger sister thinks I’m boring.”

“Yeah, but a ten-year-old’s version of uncool is not exactly something to be ashamed of,” April points out. “I feel like most ten-year-olds are still obsessed with Justin Bieber. Or is he just a sad internet meme now?”

“I don’t even know. I lost track of teenage heartthrobs between Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Ashton Kutcher. Honestly. Like.” Rory flops back. “What do I do?”

“About your little sister? Ignore her. That’s got to be the most effective way to deal with pre-teens, right?”

“No, I’m back to talking about my life here. You know, the giant problem that consumes us all from the moment we gain consciousness until Alzheimer’s eventually overtakes us all and our brains stop functioning and we die long, drawn-out deaths. Keep up, Nardini.”

“You are _actually_ the most melodramatic,” April says. There’s no answer from the other person on the bed, and April looks around the spartan but tasteful hotel room, trying to grasp at inspiration from grayscale photos of Boston and the monotonous blackout curtains. “Okay. Fine. I give. How do you normally deal with big problems?”

Rory mumbles something inaudible into the pillow.

“Okay, I like science, and I like Harry Potter, but magnification-through-pillow spells or whatever technology that would be doesn’t exist yet.”

Rory raises her head just enough from the pillow to make her words clear. “I make a pros and cons list.”

To her credit, April doesn’t laugh. She tilts her head. “Yeah, I’m more of a to-do list person myself, but I’m not the one who has problems dealing with problems.” Now, she snorts in amusement at her own joke. “C’mon, Gilmore. Up and at ’em. You’ve got a list to make out.”

“What?”

“You’ve got a problem, don’t you? Hell, I’ve never known you to be so out of words as you have been today. You need a good pro/con list to help sort you out.”

At this, Rory sits up. “April.”

“This hotel has to have stationery, right? I mean, all the good ones do. And Bibles. Which I’ve never really understood, but I feel like that’s the kind of thing where if I call your mom, she’ll know. Or you might know! You’re the bibliophile, not Lorelai. Of course, you’re not a bibliophile in the traditional sense of the word, because you love books for their content and not because of their bindings or printings, but that’s how the English language evolves, I guess. Again, bio major, so, uh, no.”

“April?” Rory is looking over at her with sad eyes, the expression April has always thought would fit perfectly onto the face of a cocker spaniel. “You can stop, now.”

Without being told, she obediently sits down next to Rory on the edge of the bed.

“Listen,” Rory says with a wry smile. “I know I’ve been quiet tonight. You’re rambling more than I am, which is definitely not normal.”

“I know,” April nods. “It’s freaking me out.”

“But I — yeah, it’s freaking me out, too,” Rory says with a laugh that makes both of them feel infinitely more comfortable. “I think this is something that I need to sort through. A pros and cons list isn’t going to work here, as nice as that would be for my peace of mind. But what am I even talking about when I make up a list? The pros and cons to living my life the way it’s turned out?”

The silence that falls over the room isn’t quite the comfortable sort that had enveloped them before. There is not a lot of comfort here. Instead, April finds that the air is simply sad.

“Doing that isn’t going to work,” Rory says again, quieter this time. “I don’t know what to look for.”

There is a long pause before April leans over and rests her head against her stepsister’s shoulder. 

* * *

* * *

The worst part about going to Harvard is the fact that they don’t give Marathon Monday off.

It’s not fair, April rages to herself quietly as she walks away from the lab. Every other damn school on both sides of the river get off. For God’s sake, even Brandeis gets the day off, and they’re nowhere near the marathon route.

And then something is…different.

When she looks back on it later, she won’t be able to pinpoint what happens. Mostly, she just knows that she was fine, and something in the air changed. A tension, a pressure. April is a scientist, but even science can’t fully explain intuition.

She gets out her phone.

Text from Rory. _Six_ texts from Rory, as a matter of fact.

She calls. Nothing.

Calls again. Nothing.

Five minutes later, April hasn’t been able to make a call, but her roommate, sitting cross-legged on her bed with one hand glued to her laptop, is able to tell her what happen.

A bomb. In Copley. At the marathon finish line. Approximately half an hour ago.

No one knows anything more.

* * *

The afternoon is filled with waiting, which April admittedly is not the greatest at. Somehow, she manages to call her mom. Mom promises she’ll call Dad and Lorelai, to tell them that April is okay and Rory seems to be too, but who knows if that will actually happen.

In the meantime, April eats a leftover cupcake and tries not to resort to biting her nails.

At last, a call comes through — or maybe April makes it. In the haze of everything that has happened, it is too hard to tell.

“April?” Rory’s voice is worried, concerned. All the caring-older-sister things April sometimes feels like she missed out on.

“Rory, where _are_ you?”

“One of the editors at the _Globe_ lives in Arlington, he’s going to give me a ride back to my hotel but not till later. They’re still not sure that they want us to go out,” Rory says, and suddenly the background noise from her end ceases. “Okay, in a closet now. Ick. Pretty sure there are mops in here. And brooms. And other things that clean. This is like Cinderella’s happy place.”

“We got a text alert,” April says, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it. It doesn’t really work. “Sorry. I’m still kinda dazed.”

“I don’t blame you,” Rory says. She sounds just like the hug that April desperately needs. “You’re okay, right? You weren’t near there?”

“I went over to Boston this morning,” April says tremulously. “A bunch of my friends—we all went. My friend’s twin sister goes to Northeastern so we hung out at her apartment and did the mimosas and pancakes thing. Oh, God, don’t tell my dad I was drinking.”

“You just had a mimosa or two, I think you’re okay,” Rory says gently. “You were in Boston for a while, but then you came back?”

“Yeah,” April says. “I thought I mentioned it last night. I had a lab.”

“You probably did,” Rory says. God, she doesn’t deserve this calm right now. Everything is chaos. “Are you in your dorm?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Rory says. “Stay there. That’s the best thing to do. I can’t get over there for a while, but I’ll come and say goodbye later tonight, okay? My boss wants me back as soon as possible because I was in the _Globe_ ’s newsroom at the time. I’m leaving on the next flight out I can get. And, April?”

“Mm?”

“I—wanted to thank you. For our conversation last night,” Rory says, and April can hear her rustling around in that little storage closet for something. Maybe something to hang onto. It feels like everything has been whipped out from underneath her feet and she’s been dumped rather unwillingly onto a roller coaster that won’t stop. They could all use something to hang onto. “I guess you put a few things into perspective for me that I hadn’t thought of before. My own personal Freud. Oh, ick, no—Carl Jung. So, yeah, thanks for listening to me. Not sure what changes I’ve got to make, but today’s been a wake-up call.”

“Yeah,” April says, staring down at the pen she’s got her hand clenched around. “It has been.”

_Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out._

“Hey,” Rory says quietly. “You’re fine. You’re okay. We all are.”

“I’m fine,” April repeats back, a little numbly. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

She presses the phone against her ear and whispers one last time: “Okay.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this late last summer, when it became clear that I was leaving Boston permanently. Over the last fourteen months, it's been the unfinished bane of my writerly existence, but also extraordinarily therapeutic to write. For anyone in the Boston/Cambridge area on Monday, April 15, 2013, it was a day of sheer joy — the kind that can really only come from Marathon Monday — that turned into crazed terror. I can't really put into words how inspired I was and am by all those who stood testament to the destruction wrought on my wonderful city. This story isn't for them: it's because of them.
> 
> As far as I can verify, anything factual in this story is just that — fact. As for the canon, I'm vaguely aware of some Gilmore Girls revival spoilers, but this was not influenced by any of them. 
> 
> (Also, the cupcakes mentioned in this story can be bought at Sweet in Boston and Cambridge. You're welcome in advance.)
> 
> Much thanks to my marvelous betas, Maria and Cheryl, for not only reading over this story and enduring me asking if it was all right about ten thousand times, but for their friendship for a combined total of ten (!) years.
> 
> And lastly: this is for Jen. Thank you for all the cupcakes, friend, and for telling me it would be all right. Thank you for everything.


End file.
